The weather changed with the approaching end of summer, and clouds gathered over the Hill. One breathless afternoon nothing could bring relief to spirit or body. A gray haze hung in the air, too diffuse to be called clouds, but too thick to be called anything else. The sun shone through it as a brilliant white spot, and not a whisper of wind stirred. As evening came, no thunder rumbled in the hills, and no breeze sprang up to fan their clammy cheeks. Thesun was leaving without a blaze of color. The thick haze just seemed to swallow it.

“Please, Aunt Prim, let us walk up in the hills and see if we can’t find some cool wind somewhere,” Kate begged. “I promise we’ll come back before it gets dark.” Her aunt knew better than to let her go. Storms were sure to follow a day like this, even if they were taking their time building. But at last she gave consent, with all the conditions that approaching storms and nightfall demanded. They were to stay out of the woods, watch the sky, and come back at the first sign of bad weather.

The girls headed down through the orchard, intent on the rocky meadows beyond. Kate was sure that if they climbed to the top of one of those grassy hills, they were bound to find a breeze, but at the top of their meadow, they found no breath stirring. The twilight was blending with the strange, close sky to form a dark brown haze, and the grass at their feet shone with a blond shimmer, as if the few rays of light left could not rise above the surface of the ground. Landmarks even a few yards away were melting into the brown gloom. Purple lightning bloomed across the dark sky before them.

“We’d better go back,” sighed Kate.